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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/27715102">A different friendship</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/Zy_Khrymzynn/pseuds/Zy_Khrymzynn'>Zy_Khrymzynn</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>Nathmarc November 2020 [25]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Miraculous Ladybug</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>M/M, Prank Wars, Pranks</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-11-25</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-11-25</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-10 15:48:47</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>946</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/27715102</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/Zy_Khrymzynn/pseuds/Zy_Khrymzynn</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>NMN day 25: Embrace.<br/>Nathaniel and Lukas form a friendship based around pranks.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Marc Anciel/Nathaniel Kurtzberg</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>Nathmarc November 2020 [25]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/series/1995844</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>2</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>6</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>A different friendship</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <span>He couldn’t believe the audacity of Lukas.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Well it could be partially his own fault, maybe.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>It all started three days ago, when he got a picture in his private email, which was </span>
  <em>
    <span>very </span>
  </em>
  <span>difficult, if not impossible to find even for people he knows personally. The picture in question was what was called a “cursed image”, and it was of a man covered in tuba parts in what looked like a basement, complete with a stained mattress and a pile of what looked like dirty laundry and clutter in the background. But the most concerning part was the large… salami that was shoved into the tuba horn where the face would be. Actually there looked like there were several.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He’d written it off as something strange, maybe Marc sent it to him under an anonymous account, but it happened again, this time with a woman that was dressed entirely in hands (he hoped weren’t real, they </span>
  <em>
    <span>looked</span>
  </em>
  <span> like plastic, but this was from the internet so he wasn’t sure. He blocked the email address and called it a day.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>But then he got the third one, this one was another basement picture, it looked like some sort of disgusting “gamer nest”, this time from a different email address that read “dontblockthisplz@tzmail.com”. What is the point in doing all of this? Whatever, he created another email address and only shared it with a few people. He already had theories about who it might be, he created a bunch of email addresses and shared one with each of the people he suspected, which included Lukas.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>And sure enough, the fourth cursed image arrived, it consisted of cupcakes that were decorated with red icing, and had fingernail-looking sprinkles. That would’ve been pretty nice, but then there was the background of massive amounts of clutter, and a few objects looking like they were </span>
  <em>
    <span>drenched</span>
  </em>
  <span> in blood. There was a caption this time. “Just got some new cupcakes!”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>But the anonymous email sender wasn’t as anonymous as they expected. Because of the work he’d put in with making several email addresses, he knew exactly who it was. Lukas Bellmonte. Alright, what is he going to do now? One more email, anonymous this time (He loved the fact that TemZlaan made it really easy to create tons of emails with little to no information), sending a cursed video Lukas’ way, which was a shirtless grungy-looking man giving a camera a dead-eyed stare into a camera and moving a straw up and down in a fast food soda cup. The low video quality and grunge in the background made this video even better (or worse, depending on the context), and he sent it off.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He got a response on the email he shared with Lukas not ten minutes later.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The primary object in the picture was a toilet, and it looked like someone was peeing through an ok hand sign. What? What was the point of this image? But it did look like Lukas knew it was him. So it’s time for the war to begin then.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Why do you look so angry?” Alix asked him three days after the “war” started.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Uh, there’s nothing going on? I just didn’t have a good night’s sleep and I stayed up a bit late.” He said, the lie slipping from his lips pretty easily. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>She gave him an unimpressed look. “You can’t fool me. There’s something going on.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Well an anonymous email sent me a bunch of cursed images, so I did some research and found out it was Lukas, so we started a cursed video and image war.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Alix grinned at that. “Did you want me to send you some extra ammunition?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Alix has more cursed images? Of course he’ll accept it. He’s determined to win this war. “Of course.”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>A full week passed, and it was less of a war and more of a game. He still didn’t like Lukas, but that was because he wasn’t that nice of a person. Their little game was proof of that. And all the escalations were Lukas’. Bringing their fight into the real world, for example, when Lukas put some ketchup into his orange juice during lunch. Of course he still drank it. It was disgusting, of course, but he stayed the course. His response was, naturally, to put a small amount of orange juice into Lukas’ ketchup, which of course Lukas acted as if nothing had happened.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He took the opportunity to escalate to the next level, managing to get a traffic cone and put it right outside his house. Where had he gotten the traffic cone from? Alix. Where had she gotten it from? He didn’t know, and Alix wouldn’t answer anyways. But the very next day, Lukas just walked in wearing it as a hat, and even had an orange and white ensemble to add to the effect. Damn.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He ended up finding that Lukas had put an extra apple in his locker, which was locked, sometime during the morning. He ate both of them during lunch.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>This continued for another couple of days until during one of Mrs. Bustier’s friendship hugging sessions, he was face to face with Lukas. What… what is he supposed to do? He looked in Lukas’ face and he had a similar expression. So what does he do now?</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Eventually it was Lukas who broke the awkward situation and grabbed him into a hug. Surprisingly, Lukas was good at hugging. This might not be in the spirit of the occasion, but he slipped a small buzzer into the back pocket of Lukas’ jeans.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Half an hour later, he’d discovered Lukas had pulled the same trick.</span>
</p>
  </div></div>
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